First Light: Betocsin

Raise the bell before the sun does.

The bell tower of a fog-drowned estuary town came down in the night, and a raiding fleet is coming up the water under the fog. You are the bell-warden, alone at the crane, with one night to put the tower back.

Course by course, the town's lozenged masonry swings in on the jib — azure and argent, the town's own arms — and you let it go. Seat it true and nothing is lost. Seat it wide and the overhang is trimmed off into the fog, the tower narrows, and that error carries up into every course above it. Trim an edge to nothing and the whole thing goes into the water.

Above you the sky is the clock. Deep night, then the four watches — at each one the fallen bell tolls once from under the fog, the light steps, and the crane quickens. Get the tocsin up above the fog line and ring it as the sun crests the estuary, and the town wakes in time. Let the light beat you to it and it does not.

One button. Two and a half minutes. One night.

How to play

Drop	A course rides in along one edge of the lozenge. Let it go where it overlaps the course below.
True seat	Land inside a hand's width of centre and nothing is trimmed — the edge grows back and the streak counts.
The dawn meter	The bar down the left of the screen is the night. The four marks on it are the watches. When it fills, the sun is up.
The bell	Reach the twenty-fourth course and the tocsin is hoisted. One last press rings it — the better your timing, the more of the town wakes.

Controls

Everything works from a keyboard, a phone or a controller. Pick one and the whole game is reachable from it.

Action	Keyboard & mouse	Touch	Controller
Drop the course · ring the bell	Space, Enter, click	the Drop pad	A / south, right trigger
Pause	Esc, P	the Pause target, top right	Start
Move through a card	Arrow keys, W/S, hover a line	—	Left stick, d-pad
Choose the lit line	Enter, Space, click	tap it	A / south
Back	Backspace, Esc	tap Back to the title	B / east
Resume from pause	Esc, P	tap Back to the crane	Start

On a phone the card's own lines are the controls: a tap points at a line and takes it in one gesture.

What to look for

• The tower is the composition. The frame is tall on purpose, the camera climbs with the stack, and the sky above it is the timer.
• The masonry is heraldic — two alternating tinctures on 64° lozenges, chisel and mortar in the material, chipped corners on the trimmed pieces.
• The offcuts are real. Every stone you shave off tumbles past the tower into the fog.
• The night changes under you. Indigo at the first watch, rose by the third, ember on the water at the end — and the fleet's masts come out of the fog as it burns off.
• The warden talks. He is not encouraging.